The shoe strings

And this was his message. "After me will come one more powerful than I. the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.( Mark 1:7)

John's confession that he was "not worthy to stoop down and untie" the thongs of sandals sounded like some idiomatic expression for the most humble down position. If you have to untie someone's shoestrings, you must bend down on your knee. And you should look at the shoes only. The bent down position with your eyes looking down could mean the extremely humbling position. John, who has lowered down himself, could become such special a person like that.

Perhaps it is one of Tolstoy's works. There is an old man who was doing shoe repairs in the half basement room. Through the window he used to look at the feet of all townspeople. It must be more real to say that he has been looking at the shoes on their feet. On Neighbor's feet and their shoes he put his mind, with an instant look at the shoes, he could figure out whose shoes they could be. One night in his dream Jesus came up to make a promise that he would come to visit next day.

I am going to stop now because you might know the rest of the story. Those ordinary people whom he met during the day were Jesus himself the story was saying. The person who used to look at the other's feet must be very humble. It was saying that Jesus came to that kind of a person. Maybe isn't it possible for us, who are losing our hearts to something else, not to recognize him?

According to the gospel of John (12:1-8), Mary, sister of Martha, poured an expensive perfume which could cost 300 denarion( a worth of year's wages), on Jesus' feet and wiped them with her hair. People could not understand this. Jesus explained like this. "'Leave her alone,' Jesus replied. 'It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial.'"(John 12:7) The gospel of Luke explains she had lived a sinful life. (Luke 7:39) People regarded her action as so strange. It looked so strange that the woman who had such bad reputation came up in public, and what was worse, she was crying and wet Jesus feet with her tears, and kissed them and poured perfume on them. But Jesus said this. “Her many sins have been forgiven--for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.”(Luke 7:47)

One day with his imminent death Jesus washed his disciples' feet. I heard that several churches are doing the ceremony of foot washing during the lent. It might mean they want to humble down themselves to the lowest place like Jesus. Even though it could be ceremonial, through this kind of ceremony I hope that we could enrich the spirituality of humility. But I am not sure that this kind of spirituality of shoe strings could happen in reality. It might be possible to lower yourself down to the earth in words, but actually it could not be that easy like words. For example, I don't think I could live to take care of old people with dementia with leaving behind everything that I am doing right now. I don't think I could be friends with dying people like Mother Teresa. Of course I could have self-consolation by making some kind of excuse like I have urgent things to do besides this. However, it is not the level of what I have a work to do or not but the level of spirituality. This is a question that I could live humble enough for anybody not to recognize me. This kind of spirituality could not be built up in a couple of days. For the spirit of Christ control us, we should start to empty ourselves in rather slow pace. Could it be possible for our lives to be enriched simply by untying the shoestrings of others if we turn our eyes into the down, not the above, as much as possible?

Lord, I like to learn the spirituality of humility. I believe it could happen only through the Lord Jesus who came from the heaven to the earth. Amen.